By Mark David Blum, Esq.

Thanks to an invitation from the Oswego City Mayor, violence and death now stalks the People of Oswego County. Targeting a vulnerable group of otherwise harmless citizens, the Oswego County District Attorney and local police agencies arrested 12 people, seized five pounds of marijuana, a laptop computer, three vehicles and $4,773 in cash. Bragging of their achievements, officials proudly proclaim their investigation required “months of work” and included a plan for “more overtime pay”, several NYSP and local undercover teams. Their stated goal: “A plan to deal with the drug dealers in the city.”

First let me say that congratulations I believe are in order to local police agencies for taking down another organized criminal enterprise. Another group of real bad guys is now safely behind bars and a neighborhood can start to rest easy. More than a dozen people are now destined to spend a near eternity in some taxpayer funded hellhole. People in Oswego can now breathe easier as the drug problem has been solved. With five pounds of marijuana suddenly off the streets, people should be unable to get stoned for at least another 24 hours.

Count me as among those people who want safer streets, where adults and kids are free to hang out and live their lives as they so choose. ‘Organized criminal enterprises’ are a threat to us all. Nobody should have to live in fear of random violence. No group has the right to dominate and control a neighborhood. It is be unreasonable to tolerate sociopathic behavior. Kudos to the police and prosecutors for working to keep the streets safe.

But, and this is the point: Every time you arrest a drug dealer, you create a job opening. Police keep making arrests, prosecutors keep prosecuting, and judges keep imprisoning. Demand, however, continues and fuels a substantial market vacuum.

So let the Oswego City Mayor and the Oswego County District Attorney explain how they intend to deal with the market demand and the vacuum created by their recent arrests? What are their intentions when two competing organizations want to market their product in the same territory? My guess is that there will be more arrests and imprisonments.

I also predict an escalation in drug business violence. Prohibitionists will be the ones to blame for the increase in violence. Instead of working for a way to enable business disputes to be settled with high powered lawyers in court rooms, the unholy alliance between cops and robbers insist on a policy that leaves all sides no option but to use high powered weapons on street corners. Citizens in Oswego are now at great risk of death, destruction, shootings, violence; all of which will be directly correlated and caused by instability in the market created by these drug arrests.

There are some questions that Mr. Dodd was never asked by the toothless media but ones which require a response. Specifically: What is the street value of the drugs seized? What impact do the seized quantities have upon supply? An one hour interruption? Which if any of the cars or laptops or cash seized were legally owned? How many of those will be returned to their owners?

How much money did you actually spend in investigation and arrest? What was the cost of just the sweep; personnel plus the cost of equipment and fuel. How much of that was overtime or resources diverted from murders, robberies, and rape?

How many of the 12 defendants will now need a lawyer, housing, processing through the system, Drug Court, use of court time and resources, medicare resources, insurance resources, and/or long term incarceration?

How many marriages have been disrupted? How many children will lose one or both of their parents? Who is going to pay for their support and future public assistance needs?

How many of those arrested will be able to lead productive lives after their contact with the criminal justice system is over?

Was it all worth it?

Everybody wants a piece of the very lucrative drug market; including our government and police. Criminals and cops benefit financially from this war. Yet, they also know that the current policy is a failure. Despite MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS spent on this war over the past 35 years, you have not prevented the shootings, the neighborhood methlabs and drug houses, the overdoses, the imprisonments, and most importantly you failed to educate our children to say "No". Criminals and cops need this fight to justify their own existence and to build their respective retirement plans.

This War against Americans has got to stop. People tell me on one hand they are doing this violence to make all of us safer while at the same time, they stand helpless while more and more of our kids are dying. These cops tell the public to be very afraid of the junkie who is jonesing. They tell us the gangs will be worse. Yet, have they stopped the junkies and their jonesing from killing? How much worse can the gangs get when they are already spraying automatic weapons randomly at YOUR NEIGHBORS.

Police already admit publicly what we all know is true. That nothing they do; no amount of arrests or street corner justice is having any impact on drug use or availability. They know from experience that every dealer they arrest creates two more in his place, for every drug house they shut down, another is going to open. Not one of them will deny that they feel like the little Dutch boy with their fingers in the dyke. To them, they feel the frustration of trying to empty the ocean one teaspoon at a time. But, they will never admit it. It would be an act of "surrender"; in their minds, a demonstration of cowardice. They are so wrong. Bravery means doing the right thing; not what your testosterone dictates but what your mind and heart know is true.

I am really sad; mostly because so many are so entrenched in the way things have been done for so long, that they cannot possibly consider an alternative. I bet nobody can even remember why we implemented these prohibitions in the first place. What I do know is that we are fighting a war now just because we have been fighting it for the past 35 years and we don’t know any other way other than to just keep fighting the war. To have to admit to ourselves that perhaps we made a bad decision, that we were wrong, that we wasted so much of our money and precious citizens' lives, ... to admit this was all in error requires an acknowledgement that we were wrong. Nothing is harder to do. Trust me on this.

We were wrong. For every day we continue this policy, we are wrong. Each and every person now sitting in prison under this policy has wrongfully lost their lives. When a dollar is spent in this war, that same dollar is lost to your school and that is wrong. This whole thing needs a change. I ask you: When is the cycle of violence and addiction to the drug war going to stop? How many more dead and wounded children will it take before people sit down and finally put and end to this game. The only ones profiting are the criminals and the cops and the prison industry.

Change, however, is going to come from you and me. It needs to start in your heart. It needs to become part of the public discussion. Our politicians need to put the subject on the table.

Simply put, how it is that despite everything, there is nobody out there today who if they want any particular drug, not only can get it easily, but probably has some already. If we cannot keep drugs and CELLPHONES out of our nation’s SuperMax prisons, how are we ever going to keep them out of a free society?

Twelve down; thirty million more to go.